Adobe RoboHelp Tech Support

Rick is right - front line tech support at any company tends to be dismal. His post reminded me of the last two times I called Apple tech support, which supposedly has stellar customer support. Each time I got such bad information that I felt like throwing my iPad under a bus. But when you actually do find expert help, it makes all the difference. As a result of escalation, and making appointments with a "genius", my iPad does not feature tire tracks today. It turns out it is worth the trouble it takes to show up with the iPad in hand.

Same thing at Dell - I have 5 Dell computers, and recently got a rep who was an absolute pro - but usually get Tier 1 people who are clueless. You can't be mad at them, it's state of  the art across the industry.

I switched from RoboHelp years ago because after the Macromedia acquisition, there was absolutely no information on the Adobe site on how to generate print publications. I'm sure they are better now, though. I too met Ankur, and he is smart as hell, ambitious and hard-working, and a credit to Adobe. But like all big companies, phone tech support at Adobe is a crap shoot - you may or may not get someone who knows something. For my other Adobe products, I use the forums before I even touch the phone. In their defense, I must say that I haven't called about RoboHelp since 2005 - it has probably improved a lot.

But I must say that at Madcap it is a different story. I no longer use Flare, but there are no clueless people on their front line. I don't know how they do it, but I found that even the new guys I spoke to over the years caught up very quickly. And their Forum is outstanding because people just love the products - even though sometimes it's love/hate - and they want to contribute and connect with other users.

Because of my years of experience with Flare, and because it is at XML-based and at least half DITA-compliant, I always recommend it over RoboHelp. I think Adobe has huge challenges with other tech writing tools too - in most of the big companies in Silicon Valley, FrameMaker use is diminishing steadily and being replaced with XMetaL. And Captivate is a fantastic tool, but I see more Camtasia usage in my company (I prefer Captivate).

Nevertheless, as an Adobe stockholder, and a dedicated user of their excellent CS products, I wish Adobe well. Over time, I believe they will adapt and grow.

I'd echo Rick's thoughts about Tech Support (as a former Support person, it's too often the case).

In my company's case, we bought the "Gold" level support package when we first got TCS2.0; any time I reported anything, I never saw a fix for my issues (hard errors in RH & FM); this year when the contract came up for renewal, we scaled back to the "Silver" level. It just wasn't worth the extra money (the portion for upgrades however is worth every penny). Next year, we may even drop the Silver level as I haven't needed to call them at all.

The forums and other mailing lists can often give you much more than support can deliver. Also remember that the front line people you talk to in Adobe aren't really the ones who can usually solve your problem - those guys are too busy (and too experienced) developing to do any support. All the front lines can do is log your problem and collect info so that a programmer can figure out what the fix could be in the next patch or release.

Hi there

Okay, deep breath here. I'm going to put on my "Tech Support" hat and speak as a former tech support rep. Fair enough?

Years ago I earned my living by working in a call center. I wasn't an Adobe employee, but worked for a different company. Specifically, I supported PC Hardware, Software and Communication Lines. Based on that experience as well as making some generic observations based on my own experiences with "tech support", I can attest that it boils down to "you might get what you pay for". Hang onto your hat. This explanation is going to expose the ugly gritty truth. The underbelly of most software houses.

You have to understand that tech support in general is an area to be avoided. Everyone avoids it! The brass that run companies most often see it as little more than a drain on profits. Profits that could otherwise be used to light their next cigars. They have made the sale already and if they had their way, nobody would ever call tech support because it wouldn't exist. Tech support makes them no money. In fact, it costs them money. So they look only at the dollars and cents and in nearly every case it makes sense from their financial picture to simply outsource it to the cheapest bidder. Think about it. Even when a company decides to run their own tech support, who do they choose to staff their phones with? The bottom level folks. While to do it right and effectively, the job most often requires the skills of a ten year veteran that has worked in all departments and has a better understanding of the whole picture than most anyone else working there, they decidedly make Tech Support an "entry level" job to be staffed by unskilled folks off the street at the most  bottom dollar they can get away with paying.

I've used RoboHelp since version 2. I judge myself to be average in skills. I've never had a need to call Tech Support. The thing is, with a resource such as these forums, I struggle to see or understand why anyone would consider an ability to connect with support to be an advantage. Most often, an advantage you are willing to pay for. So I stand on the sidelines constantly shaking my head when I read posts such as these. Chuckling to myself at the frustration many must feel to finally reach support only to be given misinformation or a simple solution for something that could have been so much more easily remedied if they had only dropped a question out here in the forums.

Help software is not unlike a marriage. Go ahead, switch to Flare if you feel it is better. But just like trading spouses, don't be surprised if you find that afterwards, all you really managed to do was to trade one set of issues for a completely different set. Or maybe even the same set in different packaging!

I will say that in the end, Flare and RoboHelp are both tools. One may be better in one respect while the other may be better in the other respect. Sure, Madcap is a smaller and more nimble company. Just last week I recall seeing a post somewhere where a Flare user was complaining about the frequency of updates and how hard it was to stay on top of all of them.

I'm sure Madcap will be quite happy to promise you the moon and to tell you how gawd awful and outdated RoboHelp is. How the RoboHelp code is just horrible. But keep in mind that these folks hate Adobe's guts for no other reason than Adobe decided to continue developing RoboHelp. See, if Adobe hadn't decided to continue with RoboHelp, it would have died and Madcap would have had an automatic vast customer base as a result. When that failed to materialize, they were mad as all get out and just hated Adobe. Additionally, keep this in mind when they tell you that RoboHelp has gawd awful code held togther with twigs and rocks, that if this is truly the case, where did the twigs and rocks come from? Oh yeah, it was the same folks! (Sort of makes you wonder what they will be saying about Flare in a few years, doesn't it?)

Ahyhow, I do hope you find a tool that works for you.

Sincerely... Rick